Thanks so much for joining me today for a little break and some
publication news! Grab your coffee and come on in and get comfy. I may
keep you a few minutes longer today.Wow, I just realized I haven’t posted a publication update blog since May, and a lot has happened since then! Let me cut to the chase and give you the exciting news that the second in the “Cup” series has just been released, A Cup of Hope for the Day,” and its official release date for the press, bookstores, et cetera, will be January of 2013! You should see the book. It looks so amazing, thanks to my assistant/graphic designer, Jocelyn Fletcher! It will be a bit before it’s available through Amazon, but if you don’t want to wait, you can go through our website’s gift store or even schedule or attend a Girls’ Night Out (food, fun, fellow-shipping and snacks too with one to two women-owned businesses and myself. Just invite your friends, promote it and we’ll do the rest!)
It’s hard to believe that I have three books out in print! Now the task of partnering with Him to get them out there into hands and hearts! As this journey is nearing three years now, or more, I’m losing track, I have to admit I am a different person, a person who is minus several more layers, being emptied of me that more of Him may reach out to others needing encouragement and hope for the journey. This weekend was an incredible reminder of that emptying. I will never forget what it feels like to “feel” as though I don’t belong, like the mere presence of my books is an insult to the intellectuals in attendance at the C.S. Lewis Writers’ Conference. I can’t even tell you how many times I asked Him: “Why am I here,” only to hear, “Trust me,” which I did and I continue to do. Seriously, have you ever gone to like a Star Trek convention? Well, that is what this felt like, only based on C.S. Lewis and his works, which I am only beginning to delve into. I felt so out of place, like I was drowning in my lack of knowledge.
The reason I got here in the first place is nothing less than a divine appointment so I won’t bore you with those details. I came to the workshop to learn, to be of some help, to network, and for the chance opportunity to speak with the attending agent, Steve Laube. OMG, I just remembered that I began to pray about this whole agent thing a few months ago, whether that would be the route to take or…. It gives me goose bumps now that I think about it.
Anyway, every time I passed the book table loaded with many of C.S. Lewis’s works and Tolkin’s, too, and then look off to the corner to see Evinda Lepins, sticking out like a sore thumb with literature for chicks, I asked myself, Really? Why am I here? By Friday afternoon, I felt like a bull in a china cabinet every time I walked by and I said to Becka, the books store manager, “My books don’t belong here.”
She says, “What do you write?”
I went on to explain to her that my “cups” are sort of like Chicken Soup for the Chick’s soul, and that I had my first novel release in June of this year and I gave her the 30 second version about it being about a girl who goes through a painful divorce and a year later enters the dating world while juggling single parenting and a career and that’s about all I got out when she stopped me, her eyes growing big and suddenly sort of glassy, like water.
“My very good friend has just gone through that, and her divorce is almost final.” She was so stuck on emotion, she could barely get all the words out and then she continued. “She will be here tomorrow.”
Her words worked like a push and this time it was my turn for glassy, watery eyes. I thanked her and walked away, heading to my next workshop, reminded that I had not gotten here of my own and maybe it wasn’t about what He was going to do for me, but what I was willing to do for Him, and where I was willing to go for Him.
It didn’t help that we had little to no signal so I couldn’t really reach out to anyone so instead, I reached up, which is exactly what I needed to do. I met some amazing people. Diana Pavlac Glyer taught my favorite writing class of the day. She is an amazing woman of God, a professor at Azusa Pacific University, the one who started the potter’s hands ministry, and has just released a devotional entitled “Clay in the Potter’s Hands,” which I bought and can hardly wait to begin. She has such a gentle, humble spirit and as I listened to her share and teach, uncontrollable tears of wisdom and revelations trickled like a slow stream down my face and onto my notes. I found such solace and encouragement in the reality of the truth that writing is a process and by the time we reach the end of the project, we are nowhere near the same person we were in the beginning.
By dinner time Friday, I was at peace, knowing I didn’t need a reason to be here; I just needed to be there in all the moments, soaking them all up, because my treasures weren’t coming in book sales, but in learning more of the art in writing more books for His glory and edification and not my own!
Please join me tomorrow for more on this update, which I know has turned into sort of a short story – sorry about that – but there really is something more to do with publication news having everything to do with this journey’s twists and turns of adventure and growth!
Joyfully,
Evinda
P.S.
Join me and Steve today for Blog Talk Radio as we continue on in the
Breaking Free from Co-Dependency series of our Destination? Joyful! ™
show.
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